Wednesday 7 November 2007

Learner experiences

So the Guardian education section appears to have picked up on the JISC's learner experiences report. Under the banner of trendy academics get out of MySpace the report focuses upon the separation of the academic and social life of students.

Part of our project will involve evaluating the student experiences of particular Web2.0 software, in particular to enhance retention and progression, and to attemptto understand how specific technologies, like podcasting, can integrate with the student's technological expectations.

1 comment:

Steve Mackenzie said...

Absolutely agree that myspace or facebook is not the place for universities to use as a delivery mechanism for a course. To me these social networking sites are just that social. I think it's right that students have their own place to breath. Nothing wrong with lecturers having their own page and interacting with students if this naturally evolves and some kind of group maybe (hmm...) colud be handy as a secondary line of communication.

From a lecturers or administrators point of view all the advantadges of social networking can be acheived through self contained, focused 'learning networks' such as those offered by ning or eduspaces that would make clear the distinction between work and play and give the educator more control over the delivery and interactions on the course.

It will also help address concerns that delivering by facebook/ myspace may reduce the authority/ credibilty of a course or programme